Ethan Hawke

The blistering story of a young man making his Broadway debut in Henry IV just as his marriage implodes--an utterly transfixing book about art and love, fame and heartbreak from the acclaimed actor/writer/director. Hawke's first novel in nearly twenty years is a bracing meditation on fame and celebrity, and the redemptive, healing power of art; a portrait of the ravages of disappointment and divorce; a poignant consideration of the rites of fatherhood and manhood; a novel soaked in rage and sex, longing and despair; and a passionate love letter to the world of theater. A Bright Ray of Darkness showcases Ethan Hawke's gifts as a novelist as never before. Hawke's narrator is a young man in torment, disgusted with himself after the collapse of his marriage, still half-hoping for a reconciliation that would allow him to forgive himself and move on as he clumsily, and sometimes hilariously, tries to manage the wreckage of his personal life with whiskey and sex. What saves him is theater: in particular, the challenge of performing the role of Hotspur in a production of Henry IV under the leadership of a brilliant director, helmed by one of the most electrifying--and narcissistic--Falstaff's of all time. Searing and raw, A Bright Ray of Darkness is a novel about shame and beauty and faith, and the moral power of art.

A Bright Ray of Darkness

Tabea Lüth

Celine

I'd forgotten what a kiss was like; I'd forgotten what it was like to hold someone who wanted to be held; someone who dissolved upon your touch; who wanted you to launch your hand up under her skirt; who was hoping you would reach a little bit further; push a little harder; someone who made little noises.

I lay there in bed, anxiety seizing its moment What am I doing? what am l doing? what am I doing? But I knew exactly what I was doing.  

"The play is designed for the ear, not the eye. The eye can look ahead; it can look behind. It can be distracted. It can close. But the ear is always only in the present. It hears what is. The actor needs to make our author's intentions 'visible' to the listener. The way to do that is clarity of utterance, and to breathe—at the end—never in middle of each line. Are you listening?" We were.

People think unrequited love is heartbreak, but it isn’t. Unrequited love is a blissful state of melancholy. Watching love die: that’s an ornery armour-piercing bullet. When taking the kids to school, the laundry, and the dishes rain down on the last remaining coals of your romance like piss on a morning campfire. When all you're left with is enough smoke to choke on. Then your heart is dead. And if that happens to you at thirty-two I am sad for you,"

A Bright Ray of Darkness quotes

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